Impacts of Trump’s victory on legal practices, future implications for SCOTUS, mixed results in abortion-focused state top court races, and more ??
Reuters Legal
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?? Good morning from The Legal File! Here is the rundown of today's top legal news:
?? Trump’s win brings new opportunities, challenges for US law firms
Donald Trump’s election win also means his vision for transforming the economy won a strong mandate.
His win is likely to jolt some legal practices more than others, including regulatory work in areas like energy and the environment, and for attorneys who help clients structure mergers and investment deals and manage antitrust, employment and tax enforcement.
"Change generally is good for lawyers. That's going to be particularly true in the regulatory practices," said law firm consultant Peter Zeughauser, as the promise of aggressive deregulation brings both uncertainty and the chance of new economic activity.
Trump has said he would?broadly roll back regulations?he sees as strangling U.S. business. But cutting red tape doesn't necessarily mean less regulatory work for law firms, said Dan Binstock, a partner at Washington-based legal recruiting firm Garrison. Rapid, potentially chaotic change typically increases demand for legal advice.
Some states may seek to fill a void left by pared-back federal regulation. Democratic state attorneys general frequently sued to stop Trump's policies during his first administration, just as their Republican counterparts have targeted policies of Democratic President Joe Biden.
Law firms, including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Hogan Lovells, Holland & Knight, and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, responded by hiring former state government lawyers and creating practices dedicated to state enforcement matters.
??? Trump could bolster US Supreme Court's conservative majority
President-elect Donald Trump, who moved the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically rightward in his first term, may get a chance to rejuvenate its 6-3 conservative majority by replacing some or all of its three most senior conservatives with younger jurists — and perhaps even expand it if a liberal justice leaves.
Justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts, who turns 70 a week after Trump is due to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, all were appointed by Republican presidents to their lifetime posts on the court. All three could decide to retire with the Republican Trump succeeding Democratic President Joe Biden and with Republicans taking control of the Senate, according to legal experts.
"I think it is likely that one or both of Justices Thomas and Alito step down in the next presidential term, and perhaps the chief justice, too. There are multiple federal judges that were confirmed under President Trump that I would anticipate being on a short list to replace them." Cornell Law School professor Gautam Hans said.
And Trump would be able to expand the court's conservative majority to 7-2 if one of the three liberal justices steps down during his presidency. The oldest of the three, Sonia Sotomayor, is 70.
Trump and Senate Republicans not only have the opportunity to confirm new Supreme Court justices but also continue their efforts to reshape the rest of the federal judiciary with conservative appointees.
?? Abortion-focused US state supreme court races draw mixed results
Republicans retained their majority on Ohio's top court and are leading in a race to unseat a sitting Democratic justice on North Carolina's following an election cycle in which Democrats had hoped the issue of abortion access would help liberal candidates secure seats on state supreme courts nationwide.
Democratic-backed candidates in Kentucky and Michigan won contests for seats on those states' respective high courts in which reproductive rights were a key issue. But Arizona voters declined to kick two Arizona Supreme Court justices who had upheld an 1864 abortion ban off the bench in a retention election, according to projections from Edison Research.
Those races were in the 33 states nationwide where supreme court seats were on the ballot in the Nov. 6 election either through competitive elections or votes to retain appointed jurists.
The mixed outcomes followed?costly campaigns?by groups that support abortion rights such as Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union to influence the outcome of down-ballot races for state supreme courts.
?? US federal courts warn of email scam targeting lawyers
The U.S. federal judiciary on Nov. 6 issued warnings urging lawyers to beware of emails mimicking notifications of electronic court filings in cases they were handling that sought to lure recipients to a malicious website with computer viruses.
Law firms and lawyers nationwide have received fake notices about electronic court filings that purport to come from the federal judiciary but are actually phishing attempts, the warnings said.
Courts learned of the issue on Nov. 6, and while they are not sure about the problem's scale, "they moved quickly to alert the public so people could protect themselves," a spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said.
If a recipient replies to the false email, they are sent another email with a link to access a document that leads to the malicious website, the judiciary advised lawyers in notices issued by trial courts from California to New York to Texas.
The courts said lawyers should validate cases through the federal judiciary's official electronic filing system if they receive the emails. The courts urged attorneys not to download attached files or click on links from unofficial sources. Learn more.
?? That's all for today, thank you for reading?The Legal File and have a great day!
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Apprenticed for attorneys for 23 years. Certified paralegal. BA Law/Politics. The law can be self-taught should that be your passion. I have spent a lifetime teaching myself.
2 周Well I worked for Ray Smith, III briefly. He was the lead attorney for the 2020 election fraud case in Georgia. I was terminated for refusal to participate in the unethical practices of law. No one cares though.